There was the property right ahead. A bird with a pink body and black and white wings was painted on the mailbox. A finch, of course. He smiled a little at the sight. His truck bumped its way up the two-track driveway common in these parts. Don’s family had always had horses, although the pasture to the right looked overgrown now. With Don and his younger sister and brother grown and gone, their parents might not keep horses anymore.
As he neared the house, he saw that one of two doors in a big, metal outbuilding used as a garage had been left open. Reassured by the sight of the pickup within, suggesting someone was around, he pulled up close to the back of the house and set his emergency brake. But even as he rested his hand on the door handle, the prickling on the back of his neck kept him from getting out.
He swept the yard, pastures and small orchard with his gaze. This was the perfect setup. Why wasn’t anybody coming out of the house to see who was here? Curtains and blinds were drawn, which seemed strange if the family was home. Wrestling a garage door open wouldn’t be much of a problem, make it look like folks were around. A memory niggled at him, and he finally pinned it down. Hadn’t Bettina said something about them wintering in Arizona since her husband retired?
Adrenaline flooded his body, and even the hairs on his arms felt as if they were standing up. Was the shooter out there, waiting to pull the trigger until Grant got out of the truck? It was tougher to make an accurate shot through automobile glass. Or was he somewhere off to the right, and the minute Grant swung the truck around to go back down the driveway, a bullet would punch through his side window or windshield? What if the son of a bitch was in the garage?
You’re paranoid, he told himself, but drew the Glock he’d carried for years. The feel of it in his hand was less comfort than usual, when he knew the bullet with his name on it might be fired from hundreds of yards out. The utter stillness here sat wrong with him. It screamed ambush. Man, he wished he’d put on his Kevlar vest this morning. Should have taken time, even given Cassie’s call.
He had two options. Do a U-turn and drive out of here like a bat out of hell, or run for cover. He studied his surroundings and the mirrors in the truck. No hint of movement anywhere. He liked the shelter beyond the back porch best, if he could get down low enough. He’d have the bedroom wing of the house at his back, and be in a good position to see anyone approaching. Phone…yeah, it was in his pocket.
He might feel like a fool later if Don Junior or Bettina Finch came out the door to find him crouched down by the porch, but he’d take that anytime over his own funeral.
He breathed slow and deep, reaching into his core for the calm he’d always been able to maintain in combat. There.
Go.
He opened the driver side door and leaped out, bent low. Moved cautiously, all but crab-walking around the hood of his truck…then ran.
Something thudded into the wall of the house. Pain slid along his jaw, as if a knife had sliced it. Another thud. He dove the last few feet, crashed into a shrub, and rolled until he came up against the concrete porch underpinnings.
Grant twisted until the house wall was at his back and he lay facing the open ground in front of the garage. Once he had the Glock in firing position, he laid his other hand against his jaw and felt the fiery wetness of blood.
He’d come barely an inch from having his head blown off.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After staring blankly at the pad of lined paper that sat in front of her, Cassie finally began a to-do list interspersed with questions.
Call or stop by funeral home - cremation
Inform insurance company
Do I need to notify Social Security?
Did Dad have life insurance?
Call/write his friends
Write obit for paper (or ask someone else to do it? Helen?)
What she didn’t yet want to think about were the bigger questions. What about the house and property? What about the newspaper? She remembered Rick Oberg telling her how overwhelming it all felt, and he didn’t seem to have any interest at all in staying in town. For her…there was a huge emotional component.
This wasn’t like the newspaper business, she reminded herself; there were no deadlines. One step at a time.
And here she was, descending to platitudes.
When the phone she’d kept within reach rang, she started. Her leap of hope didn’t last long when she saw that the number wasn’t local, or the area code one she recognized. Oh, God, not now. But of course she had to answer, although she gave herself two rings to brace herself.
“Hello?”
The voice vibrated with rage. “You can tell that arrogant asshole this was his last lucky day! I’ll see his head explode like a pumpkin. He’s next, and I never skip ahead. You hear me?”
“Yes,” she managed, before he cut the connection.
Her hands shaking, she fumbled to dial Grant’s number.
“Cassie?” he said. She heard other people talking in the background as well as the wail of a siren that seemed to be getting louder.
Her teeth chattered. “Grant?”
There was a pool of silence. “You know,” he said. “Did that bastard call you?”
“Ye-s.” Damn. She clenched her teeth, closed her eyes, and willed herself to remember she had a spine. “He tried to kill you.”
“He set me up,” Grant said flatly. “If I’d completely fallen for it, I’d be dead.” He must have covered the phone, because he was muffled when he said, “Just give me a minute.” Then he was back. “What did he say?”
She repeated it, as close to verbatim as she could. “Will you tell me what happened?”
“He fired a few shots, grazed me with one—” He swore. “I’d better appease the paramedic.”
Grazed. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s bleeding like a mother— Ah, never mind. Listen, they’re determined to haul me to the urgent care clinic whether I want to go or not.”
At least he didn’t need to be transported to the hospital in Madras. Even so, Cassie shot to her feet. “I’ll meet you there.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I do!” She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Get a grip. The last thing the man needed was her hysterics. She said stiffly, “If you’d rather I don’t come…”
“No.” His voice had softened. “I want you there if you’re up to it.”
That wasn’t even a question. Two minutes later, she drove too fast down her father’s driveway and burst onto the two-lane road without braking or using a turn signal. She held onto the steering wheel so tightly, by the time she got to the medical clinic and pried her fingers off of it, her knuckles would hurt. She was scared, but that wasn’t the worst of the dark storm clouds enveloping her. It was as if the grief she already felt had been redoubled. Grant wasn’t dead; her head knew that, but her heart wasn’t so certain. She had to see him.
She might have gotten a ticket during the drive, except every sheriff’s deputy on duty was probably wherever Grant had been. As it was, she beat him to the clinic, and had to pace the waiting room for ten minutes before an ambulance appeared in the bay and medical personnel hurried out to meet it.
“For God’s sake, I can walk!” a man exclaimed, deep and exasperated.
She caught a fleeting glimpse of Grant, struggling to sit up as he was wheeled by on a rolling gurney. One of the EMTs held a thick pad to the side of his face or neck. Blood smeared what she could see of his face. She tried to follow, but the receptionist stopped her.
“I’m sorry, you’ll need to wait out here until the doctor okays you going back.”
“Please. Grant – Sheriff Holcomb – asked for me.”
The receptionist murmured into her phone. Not two minutes later, a nurse came out to summon her into the back.
“The sheriff has been asking for you,” she said with what Cassie thought was an inappropriately cheerful smile.
When she reached the large cubicle, Grant’s face was turned away while
a doctor attempted to clean a long gash along his jaw or lower cheek. Cassie gasped and scooted around the bed to where she could take his hand. His gray eyes locked onto her face, and his fingers intertwined with hers.
“That was done by a bullet?” she asked, stunned. Fractions of an inch either way, it could have sliced open his jugular, shattered his jaw…or entered the back of his head.
As if with a movie voice-over, she heard again the vicious, metallic voice.
I’ll see his head explode like a pumpkin next time.
‘Next time’ might be the most frightening part of the threat. Cassie knew without asking that Grant would refuse to stay inside away from windows. He couldn’t do his job if he didn’t leave home. He couldn’t stop this sick excuse for a human being if he went into hiding.
Next time.
Dear God. She couldn’t stop shaking.
*****
Grant saw such fear and tension in Cassie’s beautiful eyes, he wished she hadn’t come. Except…he didn’t, at the same time. The moment she grabbed his hand, he could relax. It was partly because he now knew she was safe, partly the comfort of her presence. The wound burned as if someone had poured acid in it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the doctor leaning over now with a big-ass needle and syringe.
“Sheriff, you may feel a sting,” she said. “We need to numb the area before we start stitching.”
Sting. Would he be able to feel it when the whole side of his face was already on fire? Grant pondered. Or was ‘sting’ really code for ‘this will hurt like hell”?
Turned out he did feel each injection. His body jerked repeatedly.
Cassie’s distress grew. Her fingers tightened. “’S okay,” he mumbled. “’Cept I’ll have a scar.”
She smiled shakily. “You already have scars.” Then her eyes widened as she realized that those scars were hidden beneath his clothing. Her cheeks turned rosy.
The doctor chuckled. “We do try to minimize any scarring, Sheriff. Although, you may want to see a plastic surgeon in the near future.”
He grunted. A facial scar wouldn’t bother him…if it didn’t bother Cassie. And he couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t as if he’d had a beautiful face to start with.
Cassie stayed close to him. When they weren’t holding hands, her arms wrapped her body as if she was trying to hug herself. Of all damn days for this to happen.
They released him a couple of hours later. He knew the superficial numbness would wear off, and then he’d be sorry he was insisting on going back to work, but his sense of urgency felt like a cracking dam that held back a deep reservoir ready to flood a city. He could always take one of the pills the doctor gave him, but for now he’d rather endure some pain than muddy his thinking.
Cassie argued, of course, but in the end drove him where he wanted to go, the fire station. He wasn’t feeling his best, but thought he could handle a consultation with Scott. Cassie pulled up until she was bumper to bumper with one of the big red trucks. A firefighter wandered out.
Grant rolled down his window. “Is Scott Mathison here?”
“Sure. Not a lot of action today. He’s upstairs.”
“Thanks.” He rolled the window back up and looked at Cassie.
“I’ll go into work, too, then,” she said. “I don’t want to be home right now, and there’s always a lot I need to do before the paper will be ready.”
Grant thought of a dozen cautions, finally settling for, “Be careful.”
Her smile was a valiant attempt doomed to failure. “You’re the one who needs to be careful. He’s…he’s looking for you now.”
Grant caught her hand. “Will you stay the night with me?”
She nodded without hesitation and leaned over to kiss him. “Yes. If you need me to pick you up anywhere—”
“Somebody brought my truck back to town. Jed’ll come and get me as soon as I call.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
Standing back in the shadows, he watched until her car was out of sight before he went upstairs again, where he found Scott.
Of course, he’d gotten here without notebook and pen or recorder, he realized, never mind his lists of names, but Scott would surely be able to provide paper and pen, at least.
Scott’s mouth dropped open at the sight of him. “Man. I heard what happened, but…you came that close?”
“Afraid so.” Grant was learning to stay as expressionless as possible. Grimacing or grinning were out. It was too damn bad the new wound wasn’t on the side of his face that had already been partially numb. Right now, he felt as if he’d been at the dentist for major work and couldn’t quite make his mouth and tongue work right.
But once he made Scott understand what he wanted, the guy nodded and led him into the shift supervisor’s office. He even produced a pad of paper and pushed a jarful of pens across the desk to Grant, who got right down to questioning him.
“Caden Jones?” Scott frowned. “Man, I haven’t seen him since high school. He lived with his dad – I think his parents were divorced – but he and his father didn’t get along very well. I don’t even know if Caden finished school here, or whether they moved away.”
Grant moved him along to Rob Fullerton.
Scott’s conclusion wasn’t anything Grant didn’t know. Guy always had been a hothead, took offense easily and wasn’t well liked. Good football player, though, they both agreed.
“I steer clear of him,” Scott admitted. “Even so…I can see him killing someone by accident in a fight, or maybe pulling a knife when he thinks he’s threatened, but calculated, long-distance killing?” He shook his head.
Grant didn’t argue, since he tended to agree.
Caleb Manning, Scott did know. Turned out he was a firefighter with the department, but out of another station. “He thinks he was lucky to be able to brag about being on that team, since he was only a sophomore. He’s married, has the cutest little girl you’ve ever seen…” Scott shrugged.
Greg Miles owned his own auto repair shop here in town. Grant had had his truck in there for a brake job, and not realized he knew the owner. Again, Scott’s impression was that the guy was happy with where he was in life.
What set all this off was an unanswered question that plagued Grant. If he was the trigger, why hadn’t the killings started a year ago, when he took the job? Travis, Curt, Chad Norman, even Alicia Saunders, had all been here in town. He’d worried that Cassie was part of the trigger – she didn’t have the same kind of history with the guys his age, but it sounded as if she’d known more of them than he would have guessed. What if this killer had a thing about her? Or had nursed some rage because she’d turned him down for a date back then, or just not noticed him, or…?
Rick Oberg’s name stuck like a burr in Grant’s mind partly because he’d been in town only a short while – coincidentally or not, while the murders happened. And, yes, any of the former teammates who lived in another part of the country might have had an opportunity to get away long enough to commit this reign of terror. He knew that. There could have been an unrelated trigger that set it off: a divorce, an arrest for spousal abuse, getting fired from a job. Any of life’s usual traumas or disappointments could remind this guy of every time he’d been unfairly treated, ignored, sneered at.
Three witnesses so far – and none of them could give a decent description.
His ability to move unnoticed fit with Grant’s suspicion he had served in the military as a sniper or special ops soldier. It also went with the possibility he was staying around here – or just outside the county – without garnering any attention. He’d called himself a ghost, a description that was, thus far, painfully accurate. Rick Oberg, at least, hadn’t made any attempt to stay out of sight.
Unless, of course, he was hiding behind the very normalcy of his reasons for being home.
Grant kept the names coming.
Brian Avery. Juan Estrada. Eric Sunde. Don Finch. James Voight. Scott reminded him of a few he’d have forgotten to ask
about, given that he didn’t have his notes with him.
“Justin Addington,” Grant said.
“Huh. Odd duck.”
“I hardly remember him,” Grant admitted.
“Yeah, most of us would probably say the same.” Mathison winced. “He must have known he hardly existed as far as the rest of us were concerned.”
“Reason for serious rage.”
Scott tipped his head in acknowledgement. “I don’t know where he’s at now. I’m not a hundred percent sure I’d recognize him if we came face-to-face.”
“I’m expecting when we arrest this sick SOB, that’s the kind of history he’ll have had. He’s killing the stars on the team. Or maybe in his mind it’s the popular kids.”
“You and Travis were both in the Homecoming Court.”
“As was Alicia.”
“Yeah. Damn.” Scott rubbed both hands over his face. “You want me to see what I can find out about Addington?”
“No,” he said, voice hard enough to be sure Scott knew he meant it. “We’ll do that. I’m here so you can help me eliminate some possibilities. I don’t want you drawing his attention.”
“I may have done that when I called the meeting.”
“More likely he was flattered, not offended,” Grant said. “He’s got everybody scared. That’s what he enjoys.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Scott’s gaze dropped to Grant’s notes. “You know Rick Oberg is in town.”
Grant made sure he sounded casual. He didn’t want to send any signals to Scott. “Sure, he was at the tavern that night. Cassie had run into him, too.”
“He and I met up at the gym,” Scott said slowly. “Six weeks or so ago.” Unease leaked into his voice. “I do some boxing. I’d just climbed out of the ring when this dude walked up to me, saying something like, ‘Wow, it’s been a lot of years, good to see you, Scott.’ I had absolutely no idea who he was. He could tell. He told me his name, and it still took me a moment. I was embarrassed, but what could I say?” His expression shifted. “I’d better hope Oberg isn’t the serial killer, hadn’t I?”
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